Screening of ecologically diverse fungi for their potential to pretreat lignocellulosic bioenergy feedstock

Abstract

A widespread and hitherto by far underexploited potential among ecologically diverse fungi to pretreat wheat straw and digestate from maize silage in the future perspective of using such lignocellulosic feedstock for fermentative bioenergy production was inferred from a screening of nine freshwater ascomycetes, 76 isolates from constructed wetlands, nine peatland isolates and ten basidiomycetes. Wheat straw pretreatment was most efficient with three ascomycetes belonging to the genera Acephala (peatland isolate) and Stachybotrys (constructed wetland isolates) and two white-rot fungi (Hypholoma fasciculare and Stropharia rugosoannulata) as it increased the amounts of water-extractable total sugars by more than 50 % and sometimes up to 150 % above the untreated control. The ascomycetes delignified wheat straw at rates (lignin losses between about 31 and 40 % of the initial content) coming close to those observed with white-rot fungi (about 40 to 57 % lignin removal). Overall, fungal delignification was indicated as a major process facilitating the digestibility of wheat straw. Digestate was generally more resistant to fungal decomposition than wheat straw. Nevertheless, certain ascomycetes delignified this substrate to extents sometimes even exceeding delignification by basidiomycetes. Total sugar amounts of about 20 to 60 % above the control value were obtained with the most efficient fungi (one ascomycete of the genus Phoma, the unspecific wood-rot basidiomycete Agrocybe aegerita and one unidentified constructed wetland isolate). This was accompanied by lignin losses of about 47 to 56 % of the initial content. Overall, digestate delignification was implied to be less decisive for high yields of fermentable sugars than wheat straw delignification.